


Shade for Tea

by Scarlet_Claws



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Bretta deserves a friend, Gen, I Was Sick When I Wrote This, teatime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:40:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22677295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet_Claws/pseuds/Scarlet_Claws
Summary: Bretta gets an unexpected visitor for tea. Ghost can’t find their Shade anywhere.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 105





	Shade for Tea

**Author's Note:**

> Still very sick. I have no idea how I came up with this but it sounds like a good idea to my tired fever-drunk brain, so here I am, writing it.

Bretty sighed heavily. She should have known. No one ever wanted to pay attention to her, not even when she tried to invite them for tea. Last example to this date: Zote had yet to show up and the tea was starting to cool.

Something about a quick errand down under, he had said. Had it all been just an excuse to avoid coming to her tea party? Had she been too forward? She had intended to confess after all. Maybe he had sensed that. Maybe her Grey Prince had known that she was nothing but a stupid fangirl with a stupid crush and didn’t want to break her heart.

Because she was a nobody.

She looked outside one last time. It was snowing. And there was someone there?

She squinted and leaned out just to make sure because they were a dark silhouette in the night, but it only took her a few moments to be sure: there was indeed someone over there, standing in the snow, unmoving.

“Hey!” she called.

Two large, white eyes turned her way. There was something profoundly unnerving about how they shone in the dark, but she ignored that feeling. There was something familiar about them, although she didn’t know what.

“Aren’t you cold out there?”

No response.

“Why don’t you come inside?”

That drew a reaction from them: they started to move towards her. She stepped to the side as she observed them carefully when they came closer.

They were entirely black, a darkness that absorbed all light, and floated over the ground. Her first thought was that they were a ghost, and that it would be a bad idea to let them come in but, on the other hand, she didn’t really dare slam the door in its face because her mother had taught her to be polite to people. So, she let them come in as they pleased and closed the door once they were standing in the single room of her small home.

Well, standing was a strong word for someone with no legs to stand on, but whatever.

“I made some tea and cookies for two,” she said. “Well, originally, I invited someone over, but since he didn’t show up... well, it would be a shame to waste them.”

The shadow stared at her and, for a moment, she thought that it wouldn’t react, but it eventually nodded. This put her at ease. For all its worrying appearance, her unexpected guest had not been threatening so far.

“Well, then, you can go sit down if you wish, and I’ll get you a cup.”

She cleaned up the mugs she had initially picked for the occasions, that had hearts painted on them – now that she was thinking of it, those were rather embarrassing, and she was glad that Zote had not seen them – and took out some more ordinary-looking ones to put on the table.

The shadow sat on a chair and watched her move around her small home, their eyes never leaving her. There was still something unsettling about them, but it was getting easier and easier to overlook as time went by.

She sat down and, for a moment, they drank together in silence. The shadow didn’t look like they had a mouth, but it brought its cup to a spot under their eyes and she heard a tiny slurping sound as the hot liquid disappeared.

“You know, I think I was going to confess to the one that was supposed to come,” she suddenly said. “But... I’m not even that sad he didn’t show up. Isn’t that strange?”

The shadow put their cup down and looked at her. For some reason, their silence was comforting instead of judgemental. There was something about them where you could just talk to them and you know that they were listening carefully.

“Maybe I don’t _really_ love him. Maybe I’m just... I don’t know. And he sensed that. Maybe that’s why he didn’t come in the first place, because he knew that those weren’t true feelings.”

The shadow reached for a cookie and brought it to that same place under their eyes. She didn’t see a mouth, part of it just sank into the darkness, and when it came out a chunk of it was missing.

“But I _wrote_ so many things, and spent so much time daydreaming... and all that amounted to nothing? I don’t really know what to think about that, really. Was it all for nothing?”

This seemed to intrigue the shadow. It rosed their head and presented their stubby hands to her; she understood the gesture as a request to read it.

“Oh... you want to see it? I... I don’t really know what to say. I don’t think it’s very good.”

They kept their arms reaching out to her. She sighed.

“All right, but you can’t say that I didn’t warn you.”

She stood up and went to her desk to fetch the tablets on which she had compiled everything she had ever written about Grey Prince Zote. She almost changed her mind about showing them but, once again, she was too polite to dare protest, so she dumped them in front of her silent visitor. It was easier to talk to strangers about private stuff, right?

Very diligently, the shadow read through the tablets. She sat back down to wait and started to eat the cookies nervously. This was the very first time she showed what she was writing to anyone.

The shadow eventually put the last one down and gave her a thumbs up.

“You really think so?”

They gave her a second thumbs up with their other arm, doubling down.

“Oh, I didn’t think— I didn’t think that it was worth anything at all. I just... I wrote it because I just— I _had_ to. You know?”

They patted her arm reassuringly. Their touch was icy cold, yet it warmed her heart.

“Thank you so much. Just... I’m happy you like it.”

The shadow nodded, drummed on the table a little, then floated off their chair to hover towards the door.

“Oh, you’re leaving already?” She felt... deceived? “Where are you going?”

They turned around and waved goodbye at her. She guessed they couldn’t really answer that question since they didn’t seem capable of speaking anyway, so she dropped it and waved back at them.

“Oh, wait, I’ll show you the door.”

It was still snowing outside. She turned around to her guest, that was about to leave.

“Are you sure you won’t be cold?”

They shook their head. She remembered their chill touch.

“All right then... well, see you around then.”

The shadow bowed before wandering away in the night. She watched them for as long as she could make out their horned shape. She couldn’t get rid of the impression that there was something familiar about them.

Meanwhile, somewhere below them, Ghost was looking for his shade, but had only found a talking Fool Eater. Or, upon closer inspection, a Fool Eater that had caught a very noisy and familiar-sounding prey.

Cutting it down revealed a frowning Zote with a string of complaints ready to be heard.

“What are you doing, you incapable fool? If you don’t know how to wield a nail, you shouldn’t be waving one around carelessly! I had the situation perfectly under control! I would teach you a lesson with my blade Life Ender, but I just happen to have other things to do waste time trying to get anything valuable through that thick skull of yours.”

Ghost stared at him. As usual, it was pointless to wait for thanks.

“What are you staring at? Shoo, before I really get mad.”

With a shrug, Ghost dropped the affair and walked away. They had noticed that Zote was holding some sort of trophy, if a few leaves from the back of a mosscreep could be called that. They wondered what those were for. Maybe a present of some sort?

Not that it mattered. The most important right now was to find their shade. Had it wandered away from the place they had last died? Maybe they should head back to Dirtmouth for a rest.


End file.
